Archive of Our Own

Driver:

Cassian walks swiftly down the street, backpack hanging off of one shoulder as he weaves between the sea of people going about their day to day lives. A myriad of different faces pass him, all with their own destinations in mind: people going to work, people going home, going shopping, taking their kids to the park. Cassian’s own destination is a little cafe a short walk away from the apartment.

It might be a Sunday, but he’s got a mountain of homework to get through. The cafe gives him a quiet, quaint environment that lets him peacefully do his homework with a nice coffee to go with it. And, as a plus, it gets him out of the apartment for something other than school, training or heading to the Vilzone.

As he gets closer to the cafe, he lets his mind wander. The Vilzone… it’s still a bit strange, being the villain boss of a Vilzone. There’s still a part of him that’s displeased with the turn of events, a shred of psyker pride still smoldering within him that screams at him to stop playing around with villains. That part of him is easily squashed, though, by his better judgment and practical thinking. He is a villain now, and he’s working from virtually nothing; he can't be choosy with who he gets help from.

And… he also can’t deny that that part of him is also getting doused by the fondness growing towards the Vilzone residents. He’d die before admitting it out loud, but in his short time as the boss of the Gadam Vilzone, he’s come to care for the villains who inhabit it.

Cassian looks up, careful to stop off to the side so as to not impede the flow of foot traffic. The sky is a pale blue, and small clouds drift carelessly through the air. There’s a slight chill in the air, the hint of fall still not enough to demand more than a long sleeved shirt and a light coat. It’s a nice day, all things considered.

He wonders what everyone in the Vilzone would be doing today. Would Driver be holed up in his workshop, not coming out until the sun had already long since set for some sustenance other than popcorn and energy drinks? Would Redeye be out practicing his aim, or handing out those packaged sandwiches to unwitting victims? Would the dumbass trio be running about, arguing about something trivial like whether pineapple belongs on pizza?

Shaking his head to dispel the thoughts, Cassian adjusts his bag on his shoulder and starts walking again. He’s only a minute or two away from the cafe, no use in getting lost in thought now. Daylight’s burning and he still has a metric ton of homework to do.

As he gets closer, the smells of freshly brewed coffee and baked pastry reach his nostrils. Before long, he’s in front of the cafe, glancing at the sign posted outside advertising a sale on parfaits and grapefruit-ade. As he pushes the door open, a chime rings out.

The menu is visible from the front door, and Cassian scans it as he walks up to the counter. The barista, a tall woman with long, brown hair tied up in a bun, greets him with a smile.

“Good morning! What can I get for you?”

Cassian takes a second longer pondering, before deciding, “I’ll have a large cappuccino and…” his eyes drift down to the pastry display and he mentally calculates how much money he brought and how much he’d be willing to spend on this. He technically did have breakfast, but that was only a single granola bar he forced himself to eat; after all, coffee on an empty stomach isn’t good.

He doesn’t get hungry right after he wakes up. Not anymore, at least. Before, as Cassian Lee, he’d be hungry the moment he got out of bed and would make himself a full breakfast, but for Gangu it looks like it’s the opposite. It’s strange not having much of an appetite when he wakes up in the morning. Still, he’s been awake for long enough that his body is starting to demand something a little more substantial than the one granola bar he snagged from the pantry. And the scent of the pastries isn’t helping matters.

“...I’ll also take a chocolate croissant.”

The barista gives him a nod and within a few minutes he has his food and beverage, taking a seat at one of the empty booths. Cassian sets his drink on the table gently, shrugging his bag off in the vacant spot next to him.

He bites a corner off his croissant and puts the rest down on a napkin. It’s sweet, and the pastry is nice and flaky. He grabs his cappuccino and takes a sip from it. It’s also sweet.

That’s another thing that’s changed from when he was Cassian Lee to now: before, he would rarely have sweet things, at least not of his own volition. Jeff was always the one with the sweet tooth, anyways. He himself would prefer dark chocolate and black coffee. But, as it turns out, Gangu hates bitter things, and likes sweeter foods, so he’s been eating a lot of stuff he wouldn’t have unless Jeff dragged him to go try it.

Cassian unzips his backpack and pulls out his laptop and textbooks, placing them on the table in front of him. He opens his laptop and turns it on, flipping to the specific page in his biology textbook he’s going to need open for the homework while he waits for it to boot up. Then, with that all set, he takes another bite of his pastry and opens his half-complete bio homework.

Cassian was able to put a sizable dent in his workload, getting through his biology, English and Korean history homework before going back up and getting another coffee.

Just as the barista hands him his new drink, the bell chimes again, signifying another customer has entered the cafe. He spares a quick glance at the new person, eyes automatically drawn to the sound and the movement. A short man wearing sunglasses stands in the doorway, sauntering past him without a care in the world. The man leans his elbows on the counter. The top of the counter only comes up to a little below his mid-chest.

The man starts his order as Cassian receives his new coffee, asking, “Is the sale on grapefruit-ade still ongoing? The sign outside said it ends today.”

“Oh, yes, that sale is still in place; it ends at the end of the day.”

Cassian returns to his seat, drink in hand, and goes back to puzzling over the integral calculus problems on his screen, not even half listening to the man as he keeps talking. He’s rather loud though, so it’s hard not to overhear, only compounded by the fact that Cassian can swear his tone sounds familiar, but he can’t put his finger on where he’s heard it before.

Finally, the man finishes his order, giving the barista his name: Dave. It’s strange hearing an English name here, especially since he didn’t take the dude to be foreign, but he doesn’t question it beyond that. There are plenty of reasons why someone would have that name, and he didn’t even get a good look at the guy.

Bringing his full attention back on his homework, Cassian flips between tabs: the worksheet and some random calculus calculator he found online. He’s doing homework, he isn’t going to make this any more tedious than it already is and do it all out by hand. That’s far, far too much work. Besides, the main point of the homework is to put together the correct equations from long, overly complicated word problems; he’ll be able to use a scientific calculator when he takes the final.

His concentration on inputting the correct numbers in the right place is disrupted when someone takes a seat in the same booth he’s in, right across from him. Cassian looks up, and lo and behold it’s the guy with the sunglasses, Dave. He’s still wearing the sunglasses despite being indoors.

Cassian takes a quick second to lean out of the booth and survey the coffee shop. Did the place become completely packed while he wasn’t paying attention and now he was being a douche by taking up a whole booth by himself for homework? He expects to see a lot of other people—who knows, maybe this was the last available spot—but he’s met with a bunch of empty tables and booths, all perfect seats that a person by himself like Dave could have taken.

Cassian slides back into his seat, raising an eyebrow at the intruding man. “Is there a reason you chose to sit here instead of any of the other, vacant tables?”

Dave just gives him a smile. “What, is it a crime for me to sit here? You only take up half of the booth.”

Something about the casualness and snark in his tone is familiar to Cassian, but he can’t figure out who this guy reminds him of.

“It’s not a crime, sure, but I’m trying to do work over here.” He gestures to his laptop and books. Dave doesn’t give the stacks of textbooks so much as a glance, zeroing in on the laptop.

“Hm, that’s a pretty old laptop you got there.”

Cassian frowns. Sure, it’s old—Gangu got it as a gift when he was ten, and even then it was a few years old at that point, a hand-me-down from Yuri because she couldn’t afford anything more—but it still works just fine. It might be bulky and a bit slow to boot up and have a crack in the casing that he never bothered to get fixed, but it was still a gift from his sister and they’ve never really had the money to justify getting a whole new laptop unless it was absolutely necessary.

Gangu was always careful with the laptop. It was never necessary.

“Yeah, and what about it?” Don’t tell him this dude is a salesperson for some tech company tasked with searching out young, impulsive kids who would want to throw out their old hunk of junk devices and replace them with new, shiny ones that’ll break down in a year.

“Oh, nothing! It’s just that I rarely see models that old. Most folks use the newest stuff, or at least the tech from a few years ago. Usually the newer devices are better: better storage, better processing power, better CPU and RAM, you know, all that stuff. I like looking at the new stuff, but I also like looking at the older stuff. I’ve built up quite the collection of old tech over the years!” He just keeps going.

“It’s interesting seeing how both software and hardware evolve, what features did stick around and which didn’t, and in some aspects you’ll find that the older tech is actually better than the newer stuff!”

Cassian sighs. Okay, he’s not a salesperson, but he’s a tech geek. And he may try to buy the laptop off of him, right now, right this second. Just what he needed this morning.

“Mainly, older tech has the upper hand in durability. Take your laptop: I can see some wear and tear on it, and you’ve probably dropped it at least once, but it still works just fine, right?”

He nods, mainly because he doesn’t know what else to do. He has yet to find a good point to cut Dave off and tell him to fucking leave already.

“Those things were built to last! What, that’s a Dale laptop… I wanna say the Dale X397, but it might be a 348… Whatever the case may be, you can drop one of those things off a building and it’d still be in working order.”

That’s actually true. Cassian remembers all the times Gihun and his cronies would take his backpack, literally ripping it off of him and throwing it to the ground. There was even one time when they chucked it out of the second floor window. Gangu had been so worried about the laptop, but when he took it out of the bag to check it for damage, there was barely any. Part of that was probably attributable to the heavy duty laptop bag that Gangu had saved up for, and the other things in the backpack cushioning the impact, but he has his doubts that one of the newer models would have gotten out of that as unscathed.

‘Oh, I could go on and on about this kind of stuff—I’ve even built a couple computers from scratch myself—but it looks like I’m boring you to death with my ramblings. What are you doing here?”

The more Dave talks, the more pieces start to fall into place in Cassian’s head. He knows who Dave reminds him of.

…There’s no way, right?

“I’m just doing homework,” Cassian answers, looking more closely at the man sitting across from him. He has longer brown hair pulled back into a high ponytail, and he’s wearing a simple white button down shirt with a breast pocket. Over it is an unzipped hoodie and a regular coat. Cassian thinks it’s a bit too warm to start layering like that, but hey, who is he to dictate that.

Nothing immediately jumps out at him to confirm his suspicion, but nothing denies it either.

“Oh, really? What kind of homework?”

“Integral calculus… Say, do you have a calculator, by chance?”

‘Dave’ pauses at the question. “...Why do you ask? And what makes you think I’d have one on me?’

“I just find I prefer the physical calculators over the digital ones, and you’ve been talking my ear off about tech, so I thought I’d ask.”

“Huh. Well, I do, in fact, have a calculator for you. I am going to need it back though; it’s one of my nice ones.”

Cassian watches as ‘Dave’ reaches into one of his hoodie pockets and pulls out a purple tinted calculator and offers it to him. He takes it with a smile. If his hunch is incorrect then he’s going to look insane, but hey, even then that’ll get the guy to leave, right?

“Thank you for the calculator, Driver.”

‘Dave’ stares at him for a moment, and Cassian almost thinks he was wrong and he just accused some random civilian of being the ex Gadam Vilzone boss, but after a few seconds pass his face breaks out into a grin and he leans back into the seat.

“Took you long enough to figure it out!”

“What are you doing here?” he immediately asks now that his suspicions have been confirmed. Why was Driver in the city? In some random cafe? “Were you stalking me?”

“I’m appalled that you would think so lowly of me. No, I was not stalking you. I simply heard that there was a sale on this place’s grapefruit-ade and wanted to try it out; it’s a recently added menu item, you know! And then I saw you and decided I’d pop in and say hi.”

“I thought you’d get all your grapefruit-ade needs at Chaeha’s.”

“Heaven Pub?” Driver slings his arm over the back of the long booth seat. “The stuff there is good, but despite the fact that I’m a loyal customer and a good friend of his, Chaeha’s taken to raising the prices of all my usual items because I keep ‘hanging around there for too long’. Apparently he doesn’t want me staying there for hours on end tinkering with stuff and infodumping on his other patrons.”

“I don’t blame him,” Cassian mutters under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, nothing. What’s with the sunglasses? We’re inside.”

“I know a deflection when I see one, but since you so desperately want to know, I suppose I can let it slide. You see, my eyes are just so gorgeous that if anyone were to see them then they’d immediately die, and I don’t want to kill that many people.”

Cassian gives the shorter man a deadpan look. “Bullshit.”

“You don’t believe me? In that case, wanna test your luck and see how you fare?” Driver asks, grabbing the edge of his sunglasses and wiggling them up and down a bit, but not enough for his eyes to be revealed.

“No, no I do not.” Not because he believes that shit (if anything, he’s more dangerous with his eyes covered than uncovered with the fucking laser beam eyes ability he has with his goggles), but because he just genuinely doesn’t give a shit about Driver’s eyes. “I want to know the real reason you’re wearing those indoors.”

“Sounds like someone’s scared of getting vaporized by the majesty of my eyes, but fine, I’ll humor you. The ‘real’,” Driver even does the air quotes with his fingers, “reason I’m wearing these inside is because I’ve fitted them out with a less advanced, more compact version of the system my goggles have. It’s most of the reason why I was able to recognize you as you. Is that a satisfactory enough answer for you?”

“Yes, it is. Makes a whole lot more sense than ‘my eyes are too powerful for the world to see’. Now, are you going to leave now that you’ve gotten your drink and bothered me enough?”

“Of course not! Who do you take me for?”

Cassian sighs. “Then get over here and help me with my calculus homework.”

“What makes you think I’d know how to do that?”

“What, are you saying you can’t? Or that your machines can’t? Your high tech sunglasses can’t do simple calculus problems? I didn’t know your skills were so lacking, ‘Dave’.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know with how advanced they are they could probably finish all of that in under a second!”

“Oh really? Then come show me.”

Driver pulls his arm back from the top of the seat. “Well, I guess I can help the dark duckling with his homework. Who even cares about academic integrity anyways?”

“Exactly, now get over here.”

Redeye:

The fact that he has to have community service hours in order to graduate is, in Cassian’s opinion, complete bullshit.

Of course, helping the community is a valuable thing, and the work that he’s being forced to do is important: feeding the homeless and impoverished, cleaning up the heavily polluted and littered in parks, volunteering in hospitals to help lessen the burden on the staff, it’s all good, it’s just that he had better things to do. Like training, or working out, or getting stronger (mainly through training and working out). He doesn’t have time to dedicate 60 hours to community service!

Still, if he wants to graduate, then he’s going to have to make time for it. Even if he thinks those hours could be better put to use in the gym or sparring, he isn’t about to do all this fucking school work and homework just to not receive his diploma because he decided he didn’t want to do this.

In the end, Cassian chose to work in a soup kitchen for at least half of that time. Out of all of the options, it seemed like the least unappealing of them. Cleaning up litter isn’t something he’d want to do because even if it’d get him moving—he knows he’d end up spending way too long on a tiny section of grass just picking up all the really tiny shreds of plastic that got dropped and leave the rest of the park the mess it was before he got there. And hospital volunteers… Cassian has heard one too many horror stories from his peers and upperclassmen about those kinds of jobs.

Now it’s Friday, the first day he’ll have to volunteer here. Gangu had already completed a total of 20 hours of community service, and his current schedule has been broken down into multiple days of 3-5 hour shifts. He’ll be working here for a total of 10 days spread out across the next five weeks to get it all out of the way now, assuming he doesn't decide to switch which volunteer work he’s doing.

The soup kitchen is being hosted in one of the local churches of a lower class sector of the city, closer to the Vilzone. It makes it easier for him to slip away and go straight over to the Vilzone after he’s gotten his hours in.

He’s going to be switching between helping prepare the food, helping distribute the food, and washing the accumulated dishes as needed. Cassian isn’t particularly looking forward to this, but it isn’t something he can get out of either.

Slung over his shoulder is a reusable shopping bag full of various canned and fresh foods—this might be a soup kitchen, but it isn’t one of the ones that only serves soup and bread. As long as people bring the ingredients, there will be a whole spread of different kinds of food, and anything that can’t be used as ingredients can be given away for people to take home.

As he steps into the chapel he’s approached by a man, middle aged and wearing simple clothes—the organizer of the drive, he’s pretty sure.

“Good morning! You’re one of the volunteers, right?” The man’s eyes drift to his shirt, the one he was given by the school to wear while volunteering. It has the name of his high school emblazoned on the front.

Cassian nods. “Yep, Gangu Gwon, pleasure to meet you.” He sticks his hand out, offering a handshake. The organizer shakes it.

“The pleasure is all mine! You may call me Mr. Park, Please, follow me,” the man turns and gestures for him to follow, walking further into the church, “We have enough cooks right now, so you’ll be placed on serving duty. You might be moved to dish washer after a while, but for now you just have to dish out the food. You can leave the bag of food in the kitchen. I’m going to be helping the dish crew, so if you need someone to point you in the right direction you can go ask Kim Woojin over there.”

Mr. Park points to his left, and Cassian follows the finger until his eyes land on a tall man with his hair up in a bun. He wears an apron over a plain black long sleeve shirt and brown slacks. Woojin gives the two of them a small wave when he realizes they’re looking at him.

“He’s nice, I’d recommend getting to know him a bit!”

Cassian hums in acknowledgement, making a quick pit stop to the kitchen and pantry before heading out to the front to help serve the food.

Kim Woojin is there to greet him when he steps out, handing him an apron. Cassian puts it on without complaint.

“I believe Mr. Park already told you about me, but I’m Kim Woojin! It’s nice to meet you,” he says, a small smile on his face, and Cassian returns the smile. “So, what’s your name?”

Oh, right, he probably couldn’t hear him when he introduced himself to the organizer. “Gangu Gwon, nice to meet you too, Mr. Kim.”

“Mr. Kim? Please, just call me Woojin.”

“Alright then. So, what do you need me to do?”

“Well, for starters…”

Cassian dished out the various soups to people for a while. Keeping in mind any allergies people said they had was a bit difficult at first, but after the first hour or so he got the hang of it. As the first in the row of many people giving out meals, almost every homeless person seeking food came to him first, and many would ask either him or Woojin, who took station right next to him, about the ingredients used and if they were allergens.

There were also some who just tried to make small talk, and quite a few people complimenting him (ranging from little old ladies to women and occasionally men around his age) but Cassian, not interested in that stuff at all, kept his replies to one or two word answers and served them their food quickly.

Of course, the homeless and impoverished weren’t the only ones trying to make small talk.

“So, you’re volunteering through your school?” Kim Woojin asks, scooping out a ladle of soup and depositing it into a bowl, then handing it to the woman in line.

“Yep. I need 60 hours of community service to graduate. I’m only doing this because I have to.”

“Well, even if you’re only doing it for the diploma, I still think it’s good that you decided to volunteer.”

“Really? I wouldn’t be doing this if it weren’t for the required volunteer hours.”

“Of course! It may just be a means to an end now, but you’re still doing good, and who knows? Maybe you’ll find you enjoy helping the community and come back even when you aren’t obligated too.” The older man gives him a warm smile.

Part of him had expected the man to be at least a bit disappointed that he wasn’t doing this out of the pure goodness of his heart, but Cassian is pleasantly surprised that he was wrong.

Cassian takes a bowl from a boy, a little younger than him, and fills it with hot soup. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Not sure if I’ll do this after I get my 60 hours,” after all, he has a lot of training to do to get this body up to par with his old one, “I am very busy as of late, but maybe… maybe after all of that is out of the way.”

He glances at the man standing next to him. “Say, why did you start volunteering?”

“I just wanted to help the community,” comes the reply, easily and smoothly, but something tells him there’s more. Cassian stares at him for a second, waiting for him to continue.

“...A lot of the homeless who come here come from the Vilzone. They’ve been given no other option but to live in the dirtiest, most dangerous part of the city. I’ve seen quite a few of them, you know. I just want them to have a warm place to stay and eat and not feel like complete social outcasts.”

“Well, that’s quite the noble reason.”

Woojin shakes his head. “It’s not about being noble, it’s about just doing something to help those less fortunate.” Silence stretches on for a while, before he adds on, “...I know what it feels like to be rejected by society for circumstances outside of your control. And how much having a place you feel like you belong matters.”

Damn, that was a lot more than Cassian expected to get, but he supposes it makes sense. The urge to help those who are in similar situations to ones you’ve been in before is strong in a lot of people.

The older man glances at his watch. “Oh, it’s almost closing time.”

“Wait, what? It’s been four hours? Already?”  

“Yes, you got here at 4, it is now 8. Which is when dinner ends and this place closes.”

“How did I not get switched over to some other duty?” He can understand why Woojin might have been able to stick to the one thing: he’s sociable and he’s seen multiple people greet him by name, so clearly he’s been doing this for a while. But him? He was told point blank that he’d be moved around as needed, yet somehow he managed to spend the full four hours at one station.

“I think it’s because a lot of people like you. Don’t worry; you’ll be recruited to wash the dishes when we stop serving food.”

“Oh, that makes sense.” Cassian peers down to the line of people. Where before it seemed to never end, like three new people always joined for every one he served, but now there were maybe ten in total. “So, we finish up with these guys and then stop?”

Woojin nods. “I’ll help you with packing up everything that needs to be packed up for the night, since it’s your first day here.”

They get through the last few people quickly enough, until all who’s left is a young woman. She looks to be in her mid twenties, around Yuri’s age. Strangely enough, she isn’t holding a bowl or plate like he’d come to expect from all the people in the line, and she doesn’t acknowledge him at all, going straight to Woojin.

“Oh, Woojin! I’ve been waiting for a chance to talk to you,” the woman starts, “The child support proceedings are going spectacularly! I don’t know how you managed to track that deadbeat to whatever hole he had hidden himself in, but I cannot thank you enough.”

“It was no problem, Ms. Seo. I’m the best hunter this side of Gadam; finding a little weasel who decided to skip town was no issue.”

Huh, funny, that line sounds a lot like the line Redeye said when they fought in the Vilzone initiation.

“Still, you deserve at least this much. I’ll give you a bit of money once I start getting the payments–”

Woojin puts up a hand, cutting her off. “There’s no need for that, really. You and your child need it far more than I do. I’d prefer that money go towards housing and feeding the two of you instead of into my pockets. Which reminds me, actually…” The older man ducks under the table, retrieving a familiar packaged sandwich. He presents it to the woman, who suddenly looks a bit apprehensive, but takes it from him anyway.

“This is to wish you good luck in finding more stable employment.”

Okay, now that’s a very familiar phrase. Cassian narrows his eyes at him in suspicion, examining him again.

“Thank you…” she doesn’t sound very thankful, though if those are what he thinks they are, Cassian doesn’t blame her. “I should… get going. I shouldn’t leave Ae-ri alone for too long. Thank you again for all the help!”

And with that, the woman turns and quickly exits the building.

“Well, that’s everyone. The stoves are turned off, right?”

Cassian checks the dials on the countertop induction burner. “Yep, they’re all off. You want me to unplug them?”

“If you would, please.”

Cassian quickly sets out unplugging the stoves, and once that’s done, helping ‘Woojin’ with the rest of the closing process. As they clear out their station, the older man tries to strike up a conversation.

“Do you have any plans for the weekend?”

Time to test out his theory. “Nothing much, except for maybe cleaning up whatever mess the dumbass trio create. You know how they can be.”

‘Woojin’ nods. “Yeah, they can be a handful sometimes–” he abruptly stops, auburn eyes snapping down to meet Cassian’s, confusion and alarm spreading across his face.

“Relax, relax, I’m your boss,” he says in a joking tone, something he could pass off as a joke to anyone who might have overheard, but also something that, if Woojin really is Redeye, he’ll be able to understand.

By the way the concern and apprehension fades from his face and ‘Woojin’ starts laughing, his hunch was dead on.

Figures that it’d be Redeye who’d volunteer regularly at soup kitchens.

“I never thought I’d meet you like this. You’re really dedicated to school, aren’t you?”

“Neither did I, but here we are. And I just don’t want to have gone through all the effort of getting up to this point just to be denied my diploma in the final stretch.”

Redeye nods.

“But I do hope the dumbass trio haven’t been too bad for you.”

“Not any more than usual, no. Now, would you help me fold the tablecloth?”

“Yeah, hold on a sec.”

Crow:

“Oh, look, Cassian. There’s a workshop offering free classes on woodworking and metallurgy to students!” Moros points out, floating a little bit above the poster advertising.

Cassian raises his eyebrow at the spirit. He glances around to make sure no one’s paying attention, then takes out his phone and puts it to his ear so even if someone does catch him talking, they’ll think he’s on the phone with someone. “Okay? And?”

“And, I think it’d be beneficial for you to get a hobby.”

“I–”

“Training, sparring and going to the gym do not count.”

“I thought you’d be pushing me to become stronger faster so we can find Mark.”

“I want to find Mark a lot more than you do, but a one-minded focus on nothing but combat, your revenge and the sword of annihilation isn’t good for you. You need some variety!”

“And what if I don’t want to try any of that?”

Moros does the closest approximation of a sigh as he can without lungs. “If you really don’t want to do it, I can’t force you to. But I would highly recommend at least trying some of it. Who knows, you might like it. And at the very least you can tell Yuri about it; it’s a conversation topic.”

Cassian glances at the door the sign is posted on. It looks like a workshop alright; he can see different machines, tables and stations set up in the main room, with what looks like other side rooms through the large window panes. But at the same time, it doesn’t exactly look like a well funded workshop: the exterior is in dire need of a new paint job, and the interior doesn’t look any better off.

It kinda looks like the place someone would get lured into by a serial killer and then promptly stabbed to death.

“...Fuck it, why not?” It’s not like he’s doing anything at the moment, just walking home from the gym, and if someone does try to murder him, well, that’ll just be another murderer he’s stopped.

The door squeaks loudly as he opens it and steps inside. Seeing it from the inside is really no different than seeing it from the outside.

No one greets him as he enters, and looking around there doesn’t seem to be anyone in the main lobby area. The only thing telling him that this place isn’t closed and someone just forgot to lock the door is the lights all being on, and the faint sounds of a saw cutting through something coming from one of the side rooms.

He pockets his phone, speaking in a low voice, “Are you sure this is the right day? Or time?”

Moros floats effortlessly through the glass door, reading the paper taped on the other side of it again. A few seconds later the spirit returns.

“It’s Saturday, right?”

“Yes, it is Saturday.”

“And it’s between the hours of 2 p.m and 8 p.m?”

“It’s some time around 7:30, I think?” He didn’t make a note of the exact time when he had taken out his phone earlier, and he’s too lazy to fish it out and check for real. “Maybe we came a bit too late, then.”

“You could ask around?”

Cassian makes a wide gesture to the room he’s in that’s noticeably devoid of people.

“I mean ask whoever’s over there.’ The spirit makes a vague gesture to the direction the sawing noises are coming from. “Ask if they’re closing or whatever.”

He desperately wants to make some sort of remark, but holds his tongue. It’d do him no good to get into an argument with Moros when there are people definitely still in the building.

The first side room is vacant, the lights off, and the next two are similarly empty, but the fourth one he peers into bears fruit: in the middle of the room is a large table saw, and a woman who periodically shaves chunks off of a block of wood. She has short, black hair and has on safety glasses, a dust mask and headphones.

“Uh, hello?” Cassian says, taking a step into the room. When the woman doesn’t react, he raises his voice. “Excuse me?”

That gets her attention, and she looks up at him, seemingly shocked to see another person. When Cassian goes to walk further into the room, she puts her hand in a stop motion. He stops, watching from a bit of a distance as the woman turns the table saw off, making a show out of taking off her headphones and pulling down her dust mask.

“What do you want?” Her tone is a bit rude, but then again he interrupted her work and this place might not even be open to the public. Private workshops, maybe?

“I saw the sign outside, offering the woodworking and metallurgy classes? It’s a bit late but the door was unlocked and you were the only person I found.”

“Oh!” The woman chuckles, “I’m afraid you’re about two hours too late. That sign might say two to eight, but the owner decided to close that early due to a lack of people coming in. He’s out of the building right now running an errand, but he should be back in around an hour, so you can ask him about it yourself if you really want.”

“Well, I guess I’ll have to wait.” He would just go home, but something tells him that if he did Moros would never stop nagging him about getting a ‘real hobby’. His eyes drift to the block of wood still in the woman’s hands.

“Do you… mind if I watch you while you work? Just until the owner gets back.”

The woman ponders for a while. “Hm, I suppose so. I’m done with the saw, so you don’t need to wear the glasses, mask or headphones.” She gestures to the wall next to him, where sets of headphones, glasses and masks are hung. Then she fully removes her own, setting them down on a nearby table.

Cassian watches as she then takes the block of wood and a marker, taking a seat at one of the chairs. He fully enters the room, staying a reasonable distance away so he can see what the woman is doing while not hovering as she takes the marker and starts sketching something on the block of wood.

They stay in silence for a while, and the woman takes out a set of chisels and gouges, and begins to chip away at the cube.

“I suppose if you’re going to be here watching me work, then I should at least ask you for your name.”

“Gangu Gwon,” he answers, “And you?”

“You can just call me Raven.”

“That’s an interesting name.” Almost as interesting as Driver going with the name Dave while he’s out and about. He’ll never get over the shorter villain choosing that as his civilian name.

“It’s more a nickname than anything. I don’t give my full name out to strangers.”

He gave her his full name and she won’t give him hers?

Before he can think of a reply to call her out, Raven speaks, “So, kid, what got you interested in woodworking? And made you decide to check out this dinky little shop?”

“In all honesty I just walked by and read the sign.” Well, Moros read the sign, but that’s just semantics. “And I’ve been told by some people that I need to get another hobby. I just thought, ‘why the hell not?”

The woman hums in acknowledgement, hitting the back of the handle of her chisel to take a large chunk out of the wood block.

“What got you into woodworking?”

“Me?” She seems surprised that Cassian would ask that. “Well, I guess it was just something to do. Plus, I like stabbing and gouging the wood, and the saw is extremely fun to use.”

Raven puts the large chisel away and takes out a smaller, sharper one. It looks like she’s starting to get into the general details.

“What are you making?” He can’t make heads or tails of the surviving marker on the much less geometric lump of wood.

The woman, Raven, lights up at his question. “It’s going to be a gift! It doesn’t look that good right now,” she holds the wood. It’s been carved into a vague lump and looks like it’d give Raven splinters had she not been wearing gloves. “But once I’m done with it, it’ll look amazing!”

“Oh, really? Can I see it?” He doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be, but maybe seeing it from a couple other angles will help him puzzle it out? Of course, he could just ask…

“Sure? Be careful though, it hasn’t been sanded down at all.” She offers the wood carving to him, and he takes it gently. When he takes it from her, their hands briefly brush together.

Cassian turns it around in his hands, observing the lump. Yep, he still has no idea what the fuck this is supposed to be.

“Uh, Cassian?”

He turns his head slightly towards Moros so the spirit knows he’s listening.

“This chick is a villain.”

Cassian manages to suppress any sort of reaction. A villainess in civilian form, huh?

He hands the wood back to Raven, studying her again. She definitely doesn’t look like the murder hobo or serial killer type, but then again, Bloodrain’s civilian form was convincing and innocent enough for him to hold down a job. He very well could just transform and beat her up—there’s a part of his brain, where psyker and villain instincts mix that tells him to make her hurt— but she hasn’t done anything yet. There hasn’t been any news of murders or unexpected deaths, and Driver hasn’t called him about any trouble stirring up.

So, no vigilante justice through the use of incredible violence. Not right now, anyway. For now, he should try to gather a bit more information.

“Who’s this gift for?”

Once again the woman lights up, a wide smile adorning her face as she says, “It’s going to be for the most perfect man ever. He’s going to love it, I know! Even if he’ll probably stone wall me again.”

Cassian really hopes whoever this guy is, he isn’t a civilian. He’s seen far too many villains go crazy over being rejected by their civilian love interest and then end up killing them, their family and friends, and anyone else they might have thought of as ‘competition’. It gets nasty real quick. 

Still, he needs some more information before deciding on if he should attack her and bring her in for Driver to deal with. But how does he go about asking if he’s a civilian in a way that wouldn’t tip her off? He’ll have to figure out something soon, but for now he should keep the conversation going.

“What are you making?”

“A bird!” she chirps, “Specifically a crow. I could have gone with a raven, but they’re a lot larger than crows and the shop doesn’t have wood blocks in the dimensions I’d need. And Crows are such smart, elegant birds! Well, both of them are, but I can’t say I’m not biased towards crows.”

Watching Raven coo over crows and ravens gives him pause. She’s not making it because it’s something the guy would like, but because it’s something she loves. Reminds him a bit of how intense Crow would get whenever Little Crow would get even the slightest bit damaged–

Wait a minute.

“Ah, hold on, you’ve got something right there,” Cassian lies, bringing his hand up and pretending to clear away a bit of lint from the secret villainess’ hair. In reality what he’s doing is pushing the strands out of the way so he can see her neck clearer, right under her ear.

If he hadn’t known exactly what to look for, he would have chalked up the miniscule discoloration under her ear, about the size of a quarter, to be nothing more than a trick of the light or maybe natural discoloration. But he knows a DSP when he sees it.

‘Raven’ looks disgruntled that he touched her without asking, but does little more than frown, taking her chisel and carving a little more out of the block of wood.

Now all that’s left to do is confirm or deny his theory.

“So, is this man of yours a short mechanic,” as he speaks Cassian can see Raven’s expression shift to a small smile, then confusion. He keeps going. “By the name of, oh, I don’t know, Driver? Am I right about that, Crow?”

The woman’s expression shifts further, rage apparent in her scowl. The block of wood clatters on the table as she drops it, standing from her seat swiftly. In the blink of an eye the chisel which had previously been embedded in the wood sculpture is pressed against his jugular, and black eyes set in a cold glare bore into his own.

“If I were to stab this into your carotid artery, you’d bleed to death in five to fifteen seconds. This entire building is devoid of cameras, and the owner isn’t set to come back for another hour at least. That’d give me plenty of time to kill you, dispose of your body and clean up the mess. Do you want to try calling Lampas?”

Cassian puts his hands up in a surrender motion. “I think you’re overreacting a bit here.”

“Overreacting? Bold words for some kid I could easily stab to death–”

“You’d stab your boss to death? I don’t think Driver would like that much. He can’t keep bothering me every opportunity he gets if I’m dead, after all.”

Crow loosens her grip on the chisel, brow furrowing in confusion. “..Cassian?”

He nods, and the chisel falls away from his neck. Cassian lets out a breath as the make-shift weapon is pulled away and the undercover villainess takes a step back.

“I didn’t think I’d run into you here.”

“And I didn’t think you’d threaten me here, but here we are.”

Crow huffs, placing a hand on her hip. “You deserve to be stabbed to death for startling me like that, but I’ll concede; you do have a point about Driver. Wouldn’t do much good to have the boss die less than a month after coming into power.”

The way she sighs in disappointment, like she was looking forward to stabbing him to death. lowkey scares Cassian. Why couldn’t their meeting have gone like his meeting with Driver or Redeye?

“Well, I’m going to… go home now. Have fun with your wood sculpture.”

“Aw, what, did I spook you?”

“Yes, now goodbye.”

And with that, Cassian turns and walks out of the building.

Aftermath:

Driver slams a pack of cards down on the table, a wide grin on his face as he looks at the two others sitting at it. Crow and Redeye stare in apprehension.

“What’re those looks for?” Driver asks.

“I thought we said no more card games after you kept cheating every chance you got,” Redeye answers, frowning.

“Oh, come on, I promise I won’t do it this time!”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“And the time before,” Crow tacks on.

“And the time before that.” Redeye continues.

“And the time before that.”

“And you cheated almost every single time,” Redeye finishes.

“Exactly! Almost every time, not every single time. I can not cheat!” Driver pouts when his friends’ expressions remain unchanging. “Don’t be like that! This is supposed to be a laid back catching up sesh, is there even any harm if I do cheat? It’s not like I win anything from these games.”

The archer villain sighs. “If you want to play card games so much, then why don’t you play 52 pick up while we watch.”

“Now that’s just cruel!” He can’t help the smile as Crow agrees with him. “What about a game of kings in the corner? I swear on my name as a villain that I will not cheat. And kings in the corner isn’t really a cheat-able game.”

Even with their eyes covered, Driver can tell the other two are narrowing them at him, so he does his best to project the most innocent, truthful and well intentioned look he can.

The little staring contest goes on for a bit, but soon enough both Crow and Redeye sigh, almost simultaneously, and concede. “Fine.”

Driver’s grin grows wider as he takes the cards out of the pack and starts dealing them out, seven cards for each person, and puts the stack in the center of the table. Then he draws four extra cards, placing one at each of the edges of the main deck.

“Since I picked the game, and Crow went first last time, Redeye should go first this time. So, Redeye, did anything interesting happen in the last two weeks since our last game session?”

Redeye draws a card from the deck and hums, both considering his cards and the events that transpired over the past weeks. Driver doesn’t expect he’ll say much; every time they host their bi-weekly ‘catch up time’ to tell each other about the things that happened outside of the Vilzone, the archer’s tales are almost always the shortest and most boring. He just volunteers at a nearby soup kitchen in his free, non-villain time.

“I think I’ve told you about Ms. Seo, haven’t I?”

“You list off so many names we wouldn’t know who you’re talking about, but most likely,” Crow answers.

“Well, she has an ex husband. Skipped town when he was supposed to be paying child support. I took a bit of time to track him down and tip off the local authorities to his outstanding missed child support payments. That was actually why you didn’t see me much on Thursday.”

Wow, Redeye actually did something interesting. Who would’ve thunk it? Now Driver’s curious.

“Anything else?”

“I also met–” Redeye begins to speak but suddenly stops, brows furrowing in contemplation as if he isn’t sure if he should share that story. “We got a couple new volunteers, and for once we’re not understaffed. It looks like a lot of students are realizing they have to get their volunteer hours in soon or they won’t be able to graduate. I was serving food with one of the students from Gadam High School.”

“Was he rude? Did he sneer at the homeless people? Do you need me to stab him to death for you?” Crow inquires, a small, evil smile growing on her face. Redeye shakes his head.

“No, no, he was actually quite polite. He got a lot of compliments, though he didn’t talk to the people he was serving… like, at all. But I can’t blame him; being social isn’t for everyone.”

“What, are you not going to give us a name for this kid?” Usually Redeye would drop a name within the first two sentences, but this kid still has yet to be named.

Redeye stares down at the configuration of cards, moving one stack with a king at the top to a corner and placing down three cards in their place. After a second of silence, he finally says, “Gangu. His name is Gangu Gwon.”

Crow seems surprised at that, and Driver is too. He’s like 97% sure that that’s Cassian’s civilian ID. Actually, speaking of Cassian…

“That’s all for my turn,” Redeye announces as he puts his cards down, “And all I have to share. Who’s going next?”

Crow turns her head to him. “I think my darling can go next.”

“Okay! I wasn’t able to get that old CCTV I needed for parts—the seller ended up giving it to someone who gave him a higher offer,” He ignores Crow when the villainess asks him for a name and address, “so I’m probably just going to have to make the part myself or try to find another one on the market. But that’s not the most interesting thing that happened!”

Both of the other villains lean in a bit, a clear show that they’re both listening intently. Driver puts two cards down on one stack, and takes one of the smaller stacks of cards, putting it on the same stack he had added to seconds prior.

“I actually ran into Cassian in civvy form while I was out and about!”

Crow and Redeye both look like they want to ask questions, but Redeye beats her to the punch. “Really? Where did you meet him?”

“At a little cafe. I was checking it out because there was a sign that said they were having a sale on grapefruit-ade, and our little dark duckling was in there doing homework. You know, I always thought that the kid would look… edgier, in civilian form. But if I hadn’t had my fancy sunglasses on I would have just assumed he was a normal high school student.” He examines the remaining cards in his hands, contemplating the legal moves he can make. When he said he wasn’t going to cheat, he meant it! …This time, at least!

“Oh yeah, I stole a sip from his coffee, and it was sweet! I pictured him as the kind to drink ‘Coffee as dark as his soul’,” Driver makes a ‘serious voice’ imitating Cassian, which causes Crow and Redeye to chuckle, “but no, he had a cappuccino!”

“The dark duckling likes sweet things, huh?” Crow laughs. “Never would have guessed by how he acts around us.”

“Did he know who you were when you crossed paths?”

Driver stares at Redeye. “Do you think I would have stolen some of his drink if he didn’t?”

Redeye shrugs. “You might have.”

“I am disappointed that you think so lowly of me. But yes, he did figure out who I was pretty quickly, though I was dropping plenty of hints for him to pick up on.” He puts his cards down and leans back in his chair, gesturing to Crow and clasping his hands together behind his head. Crow glances down at her own cards as he continues speaking, “The sip of his coffee was payment for him forcing me to do his calculus homework.”

Crow pauses, looking up at him slowly. “He did what?”

“Cass made me do his math homework for him. Held me at gunpoint and threatened me until I did his integral calculus problems,” he says jokingly.

The villainess, however, doesn’t share his lighthearted mood. “I should have stabbed him in the jugular when I had the chance.”

“...What?” Did Driver hear that right? “Since when did you have the chance to stab Cassian in the jugular?”

“Oh! Funny thing, it seems we’ve all run into Cassian while we were out doing our own things. He came into the workshop I was working in. When he found out who I was, I thought he was some random kid who had somehow figured out not only that I was a villain but also which villain I was, and so threatened him with a wood chisel.”

At Redeye and Driver’s concerned expressions, Crow continues, “I didn’t actually stab him. Though I should have if he thinks he can order Driver around to do menial work like homework.”

“It barely took me five minutes to do it all, it’s fine,” Driver placates. He doesn’t think that Crow would try to seriously harm the new boss, but it wouldn’t hurt to calm her down a bit.

“But we all met Cassian over these past two weeks, huh? All of these encounters in such a short amount of time after so long of absolutely nothing. I found out what the kid looked like before the little run in at the cafe, but even that was recent —back during the Toymaker incident.”

“It’s nice knowing a little more about the new boss,” Redeye says, “I knew he went to school, but… volunteering? Checking out a local workshop? Doing homework in a cafe? I never would have expected it from him.”

“Neither would I,” Crow comments, “But anyways, if Driver’s done with his recap, can I start on mine?”

“Oh, yeah, go for it! I’m basically done.”

“So, on Tuesday I went out…”